381. Слово во Святой и великий пяток

(Said in the court cathedral church, in the presence of Their Majesties the Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna and the Empress Maria Feodorovna, the Imperial Highnesses the Grand Dukes and the Grand Duchess in 1812; printed separately). Daughters of Jerusalem, do not cry for me, but rather cry for yourself and your children. (Luke 23:28). Ah, the joy of Israel! Is this how you comfort Israel? The man of sickness from the Physician of souls and bodies, the Lamb among wolves from the Shepherd of lost sheep, the Judge condemned by criminals, the King of glory mocked by slaves, the word falling silent, the light fading, this resurrection and life, but dying and buried - shouldn’t we cry for You? Why does the sky lament, the earth tremble and the stone sigh? Is this “your day”, which Abraham, our father, “would have rejoiced...to see,...and to see, and to rejoice” (John 8:56)? And now should we cry for ourselves? If all Israel, if the entire human race, if the whole world were perishing now, this might not be noticed by those looking at the suffering God-man. Is the immeasurability of creation worth a single drop of Your blood, are all times and years worth a single minute of Your sorrow, Jesus! But I forget myself. I did not come to argue with You about Your love, I have already been bickered and trampled underfoot by malice, Lover of mankind! I have come to proclaim His will to you, those accompanying Him on the path of the cross and the tomb, daughters of the new Jerusalem, Christian souls! He sees your pious sorrow - and in it itself he opens for you a source of healing. He wants you to draw both sweet consolation and saving contrition from the contemplation of His death on the cross. Consolation about Him: “don’t cry for me.” Contrition for yourself: “Weep for yourself and your children.” Let us obey our meek Mentor at this most important moment, when He has so few to obey. What is it that makes us cry at the sight of suffering and death? If destruction is in the laws of existence, then why is the action of nature terrible for nature itself? If the immortal soul is indignant at corruption, as being contrary to its essence, why is it more struck by the transitory image of corruption than by essential and inalienable immortality? Let us be more attentive to ourselves, and we will notice that mortal illnesses respond to another illness of human nature that precedes them - the illness of “sin”, which “gives birth to death” (James 1:15). For where sin loses its power, there the painful sting of death must also be dulled. Christ “thou shalt not commit sin” (1 Peter 2:22). No matter how much the prince of darkness divulged, through the mouths of his like-minded people, “for this man is a sinner” (John 9:24), in order to eclipse this innocence desired for us, this Divine holiness - it was shone with the light of midday by the very condemnation of Jesus. Laughing at the vacillations of those rebelling against him, Providence commanded one of their midst to preach about him what his followers did not believe, his teaching, his life, his signs. Pilate, at the very time when he gives in to the cries of the bloodthirsty crowd: “Crucify, crucify him” (John 19:15), he himself does not cease to cry: “I find not a single guilt in Him” (John 18:38). He agrees to shed his blood, but not otherwise than with hands washed in His innocence. So, let Jesus suffer, but let not His enemies rejoice, and let not those who love Him lose heart: he who is Truth and Holiness is not imputed in vain with the wicked. Let Jesus die, but let death tremble, accepting Him into its dominion: its rights do not extend to the sinless. “I cannot withstand His being from her” (Acts 2:24). May it not be, Christians, that we imagine our Leader, even for a moment, defeated when we see Him tormented or lifeless. It is not chance or violence that leads Him on the way of the cross: “He walks... according to what was ordained” (Luke 22:22). They do not pluck out His soul: He “lays it down” (John 10:11). Long ago He marked His death to the nations; announced to the disciples; carried in his mind and heart in such a way that for his careless desire to shake this thought in Him, he struck his friend, whom he had recently called the “rock” of faith, to whom he entrusted “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” with the terrible name “Satan” (Matthew 16:18–19, 23). Yesterday, at the evening meal, He clearly outlined the events of the present day - and offered His body, now tormented, as food, gave the blood, now shed, to drink. He pointed out his traitor; and accepted his betrayal as a service: “friend, do what you came to do.” (Matthew 26:50). Legions of Angels awaited the command to take up arms around Him; His single word: “I am” (John 18:5) appeared stronger than the Legions: but He did not want triumph, but captivity, humiliation and death. Now is no longer the time, like Peter, to argue against this love of suffering. It is left to us to penetrate into the mystery of it, so as not only to be comforted in the death of Jesus, but also to revere it. In His death, listeners, He loves man. “For God loved the world, for He also gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Of course, the Wise One wrote about this love: “strong as love is death, jealousy is cruel as hell” (Song. 8:6). Because life seemed to man a dubious supporter of God’s love: this love betroths him to itself with death. Man has fallen away from the love of God; jealousy, like a cruel hell, opened hell in his fall: but love, like a strong death, dies for him, and quenches jealousy, closes hell, ignites his extinguished love, gives him new life. The suffering Intercessor of God and men reconciles the zeal that rests in the saints with all-encompassing love, justice with mercy, death with life, man with God. The death of Jesus is the focus of created existence and the “fulfillment of redemption” announced from Him (John 19:30) completes the “fulfillment of creation” (Gen. 2:2), and prepares for the “fulfillment of all renewal” (Rev. 21:6). The fate of the world hangs on His cross, the life of the world lies in His tomb. This cross illuminates the deplorable land of life with light; from this tomb the sun of blessed immortality will rise. Only our sin is put to shame on the cross; only our death is buried in the tomb: but the Son of God is glorified; but the God-man wins. O cross of glory! From now on, do not be a tree of curse and horror, but a tree of blessing and peace; cast down the pagan olives and laurels to your feet; mount the sacred crowns of the sovereign heads; being a witness and instrument of exploits, be also their reward and decoration; appear to those who love You in all nature; rather, be established in our hearts, “let us not boast except in you, in the cross of the Lord” (Gal. 6:14). And you, the grave of life! establish yourself unshakably among the militant Church, like a sign of victory, and, delighting her with the memory of the victory won by her Head in single combat against the prince of darkness, herald her victory in the general battle against the kingdom of darkness! But what do we see, listeners! The tomb of our Jesus is surrounded by darkness and mourning, like the tombs of mortals. Does the Church really not know the secret of this life-giving tomb? No, she bases it only on our own sadness; she repeats to us the Lord’s commandment of contrition for ourselves: “Weep for yourself and for your children” (Luke 23:28). How much higher are the sufferings of our Lord than compassion in terms of their Divine greatness and blessed consequences, so far are those who dared to rebel against their Savior and reproach the Holy One of God from consolation. Those who sacrificed Him to their greed, curiosity, and man-pleasing cannot sufficiently mourn themselves and be mourned. All Jerusalem - Jesus does not exclude either the “daughters of Jerusalem” or their “children” - all Israel is worthy to drink the bitter cup from the hand of him “who passes on the sins of the fathers to their children and to their children” (Ex. 34:7). Blinded by sensuality and superstition, the people “did not understand... the time of their visit” (Luke 19:44), and so they will see in their midst the abomination of desolation. He solemnly accepted the “blood” of the righteous “on himself and on his children” (Matthew XXVII. 25), for which he will soon envy the childlessness. “These days are coming, they will cry in sorrow, blessed are the unfruitful” (Luke 23:29). And Jerusalem has already been destroyed; Israel is mourned: however, Jesus, in the voice of the Gospel and the Church, still cries out: “Weep for yourself and for your children.” Are there no other people guilty of His suffering? - Alas! and who is not to blame for His suffering? He is the “Lamb of God who takes away sins,” not of Jerusalem, not of Israel, but of “the world” (John 1:29), the whole world. “He bears our sins, and is pained for us” (Is. 53:4). Being all descendants of one sinner “and children of wrath by nature” (Eph. 2:3), we have inherited the sad necessity of being the cause of the suffering of the Son of God; we were His enemies before we could love Him - before we tasted life, He suffered mortal illnesses from us and for us. I don’t know, long-suffering Lord! What kind of tears should we most especially bring to You for this: bitter tears of repentance, or sweet tears of love and gratitude. Hereditary sin is not the only burden under the weight of which we suffer and which we cast upon the suffering Redeemer. With what tireless activity we multiply the sad legacy of Adam even when we vowed to expose ourselves, “putting off the old man... and putting on the new” (Col. 3:9-10). Glory to the All-Good, if blessed Jerusalem does not have its Pharisees, who clothe worldly love of glory with zeal for the glory of God; nor the Sadducees, who despise the kingdom of God because it is not flesh and blood; nor the scribes who wish to destroy the spirit of the Gospel by the writing of the law; nor the false brothers who wound Jesus with their very kisses; nor cowardly people-pleasers who sacrifice the truth of God to human violence: let us not see - which unfortunately the Apostle already saw - “the second of those who crucify the Son of God” (Heb. 6:6). Are there at least those who, like Peter, even after a sincere determination not to be separated from the Lord in life and death, embarrassed by the voice of the treacherous slave - the flesh, do not dare to utter His name before her: “I do not know man” (Matthew 26:74)! and only through a special view of grace do they return to their vow? And can we have enough of Peter’s “bitter tears” (Matthew 26:75) 913 in order to mourn such stumbling blocks, which all attack the heart of our Restorer? He who does not weep with Peter, let him weep with the daughters of Jerusalem. Whoever is not humbled by previous falls, who is not softened by the mercy of God, let him be crushed by the fear of the future. “Weep for yourself and your children” (Luke 23:28). Children of the new Jerusalem! Do we also understand the time of our visit? Having accomplished our salvation in the midst of the earth, the Lord “rested” from his “work” (Gen. 2:2) of the second creation. Do we expect, after this Saturday, another great and enlightened day for Him, on which He will “resurrect” in order to “judge the earth” (Ps. 82:8)? “The Spirit of Christ, which first testified about Christ’s passions, and about the words of these” (1 Peter 1:11), apparently no longer speaks to us: He hides in the tomb of rituals, under the seal of lack of faith, behind the guard of earthly wisdom; and the peace of God’s long-suffering plunges us into a sleep similar to the sleep of holy fools’ virgins. But the long-suffering of the Lord is not sluggishness, and His rest is not slumber. “I sleep, but my heart watches” (Song. 5:2). He numbers the years and the days; looks at the flowing measure of iniquity, grieves over the suffering and patience of his chosen ones, who have long been crying to him: “Arise, write off this world, O Lord” (Ps. 43:24) and calls for the day of wrath and the day of judgment. “These days are coming, they will say: Blessed are the barren ones, and the wombs that have not given birth” (Luke 23:29). It will be more joyful for those who have not given birth to the spirit of Christ in themselves on the terrible day of the revelation of the glory of God than for those who had it, but extinguished it through negligence. Slow down, Lord! Delay still more from the day of Your glory: we still need the day of our mourning. Let us mourn for ourselves; and the handwriting of our sins, blotted out by Your blood, but constantly renewed by us, should be washed away with tears of repentance. Grant that Your treasured blood will not be on us, as it was on the Jews, to aggravate the death that is already natural for us; but let it be in us and give us a new “living life from your life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Then finally - “Rise up, God!” judge the earth: for thou hast inherited among all nations” (Ps. 81:8). Amen. “And he went out weeping bitterly.” – AB. You might be interested in: